Commentary on StarWarsStarTrek v. 2046

[Mike DiCenso]

after reading this guys most recent post I think I should raise it to attention he's going out of his way to ignore..DS points and his plea for civility when generally he's shown none what so ever to any one he has trouble debating against.

I'm also curious about how valid power scaling a reactor anime style is..for evidentiary purposes

While I agree he ignores arguments against his position, I haven't seen him being disrespectful to anyone.
Do you have specific quotes?

SWST has pushed the borderline on a couple of occasions, but backed off with nothing more needed than an unoffical warning. I admit, though, that he might have been extremely rude, and it might have been missed. People tend not to report things as they should, and neither of us can be everywhere to patrol all the topics.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

What sort of mind would present such a thing as a failure? No force can prevent everything. That's like saying "OMG the WW2 US Navy sucked because they failed to stop attacks on America!"

Aren't you kinda shooting your own foot in saying that no force can prevent anything?
If the Breen were actually that suicidal to attack Earth, why would they not mass spam the planet with whatever sort of bioweapons and torps? If they had time to beam down, there's even less excuses!

The better explanation would be that they were not looking for mass destruction but actually conquest, by taking control of some positions in official buildings and bargaining with countless hostages or something. Now I haven't seen the episode so I don't know if that even could remotely fit with the facts.

Not necessarily. We don't see the attack, so all we are doing is really speculating based on what has been previously established. A brief shot of San Francisco is shown with the Golden Gate bridge and a number of structures heavily damaged, but that's it. All that is mentioned is that the Breen fleet was mostly wiped out by Starfleet... which could mean a battle of many hundreds and thousands of ships, plus planetary defenses, ect. We don't know.
-Mike

[User1602]

I see a dangerous assumption that either every ship and weapon in the Breen fleet was sent in the attack, and/or every ship in the attacking fleet was successful in reaching Earth.

Since they didn't have Scimitar-style cloaks (i.e. 100% undetectable), it's much more likely that only a few ships were sent/got through, since both Earth and Federation space weren't exactly undefended territory.
So while the Breen ships did everything they could, it simply wasn't enough to conquer or destroy Earth, not by a longshot; rather, it was simply a single long-range mission with a few ships, and/or most of them were stopped.

Earth is the Federation's capital, and an enemy's capital is always a primary target in a war; however obviously it's never the only target--in fact it's often counter-productive, as when General Lee tried to capture Washington D.C., i.e. the attempt costs more than the benefit.

[Praeothmin]

Plus Earth defenses were active and destroyed the attacking fleet, or most of it.
While the defenses are not detailed, since we know Trek has planetary shields, then the damage seen may simply be bleedthrough damage from the attack...

[User1602]

Plus Earth defenses were active and destroyed the attacking fleet, or most of it.
While the defenses are not detailed, since we know Trek has planetary shields, then the damage seen may simply be bleedthrough damage from the attack...

Don't forget the Breen "energy dissipator weapon," which made the attack possible at all; this was certainly the means of their success, since the attack took place immediately following its first use against the Fed. This might have affected Earth's planetary shields, allowing a few strikes to get though.

It obviously didn't make them invincible, since they didn't beat all of Starfleet: rather, the DS9 crew got immediate intelligence on the weapon, and methods to counter its effects etc.
So at best, their weapon would only give them a temporary advantage for sneak-attacks.
However there's a BIG difference between attacking your enemy's capital, and destroying/conquering it.

[Mr. Oragahn]

That's fine and all, but since they did manage to bomb some stuff on the surface, and since shields are not bleed through/dampening systems but literally fake walls when it comes to torpedoes, then again, why the hell didn't a single Breen manage to nuke anything?

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Breen_attack_on_Earth

They did get something through, but it all conveniently managed to be only worth a few hand grenades and some low bunker busting crap.

[User1602]

I'm sure Earth has more than just a wall-shield that's all or nothing. They might have a few Patriot missiles left in storage, who knows?

[Mr. Oragahn]

I'm sure Earth has more than just a wall-shield that's all or nothing. They might have a few Patriot missiles left in storage, who knows?

So 20th century missiles can shoot down photon torpedoes and their equivalents? Good to know.

[User1602]

Whatever.

[Praeothmin]

That's fine and all, but since they did manage to bomb some stuff on the surface, and since shields are not bleed through/dampening systems but literally fake walls when it comes to torpedoes, then again, why the hell didn't a single Breen manage to nuke anything?

I'm going to have to disagree with that statement, since we've seen that pretty much all attacks in ST on shields have had some bleedthrough effects, effects that increase with the weakness of the shields, or else ships with shields should never have any damage to consoles until their shields were down, and they do...

[2046]

What sort of mind would present such a thing as a failure? No force can prevent everything. That's like saying "OMG the WW2 US Navy sucked because they failed to stop attacks on America!"

Aren't you kinda shooting your own foot in saying that no force can prevent anything?

Not at all. It's simply a fact of life, especially (but not exclusively) for a free society like that of the Federation.

If tomorrow a handful of Al Qaeda gunmen (or knifemen or stickmen) do something awful in an American city and cause the death of many, it is not a failure of the United States. It is an unavoidable attack. The same is true of any other nation.

If the Breen were actually that suicidal to attack Earth, why would they not mass spam the planet with whatever sort of bioweapons and torps?

They obviously couldn't or wouldn't do so, and the latter seems a bit unlikely given prior Dominion use of bioweapons.

The better explanation would be that they were not looking for mass destruction but actually conquest, by taking control of some positions in official buildings and bargaining with countless hostages or something. Now I haven't seen the episode so I don't know if that even could remotely fit with the facts.

No offense, but that's a rather terrible idea. If me and my Jem'Hadar that I just grew go take over the White House tomorrow, do you really think I'll conquer or control anything? Of course not. I'd simply get the highest score in the hostage-taking placemap game.

[Mr. Oragahn]

That's fine and all, but since they did manage to bomb some stuff on the surface, and since shields are not bleed through/dampening systems but literally fake walls when it comes to torpedoes, then again, why the hell didn't a single Breen manage to nuke anything?

I'm going to have to disagree with that statement, since we've seen that pretty much all attacks in ST on shields have had some bleedthrough effects, effects that increase with the weakness of the shields, or else ships with shields should never have any damage to consoles until their shields were down, and they do...

That's invalid, because the bleeding in question is for some reason transmitted from the shields to some internal systems and overloads some power conduits (and consoles, for some silly reason). It's not projectiles being stopped by 99.999% and then hitting the planet. Evidence of this is happening with UFP shields is required then.

What sort of mind would present such a thing as a failure? No force can prevent everything. That's like saying "OMG the WW2 US Navy sucked because they failed to stop attacks on America!"

Aren't you kinda shooting your own foot in saying that no force can prevent anything?

Not at all. It's simply a fact of life, especially (but not exclusively) for a free society like that of the Federation.

If tomorrow a handful of Al Qaeda gunmen (or knifemen or stickmen) do something awful in an American city and cause the death of many, it is not a failure of the United States. It is an unavoidable attack. The same is true of any other nation.

When did Al Qaeda get access to super tech? When did Al Qaeda attack the US with high tech tanks, fighters, submarines and other crafts, while using MOABs and nukes?
Erm... never.
Yet they did hit.
In fact, you just proved my point, again.

If the Breen were actually that suicidal to attack Earth, why would they not mass spam the planet with whatever sort of bioweapons and torps?

They obviously couldn't or wouldn't do so, and the latter seems a bit unlikely given prior Dominion use of bioweapons.

Couldn't? You said the UFP couldn't stop all so that's not a valid counter argument.
Wouldn't? Are the Breen terribly dumb by chance? Or were they hoping on seriously hurting the Federation with a few TNT sticks?
Hence why my idea is better. It doesn't require some convoluted rationalization about why the most severe damage the Breen could achieve would be severing the Golden Gate. :|

The better explanation would be that they were not looking for mass destruction but actually conquest, by taking control of some positions in official buildings and bargaining with countless hostages or something. Now I haven't seen the episode so I don't know if that even could remotely fit with the facts.

No offense, but that's a rather terrible idea. If me and my Jem'Hadar that I just grew go take over the White House tomorrow, do you really think I'll conquer or control anything? Of course not. I'd simply get the highest score in the hostage-taking placemap game.

I think it's a bit ludicrous to pretend that by attacking federal buildings and holding many people as hostages, you wouldn't get anything at all. Unless you think the Federation would just say "oh well, kill them all anyway"?
For one, you could probably begin passing some orders and threatening the lives of your hostages if the various branches of the Federation that are now below your direct yet usurped authority now refuse to do anything.
It's even more amusing if you consider that this could be the first phase of a coup; the Breen would argue that the UFP was ready to go to war with a powerful enemy, the Dominion, and the Breen worked on behalf of the Dominion to remove the current bureaucracy to put another into place that would do what is necessary to avoid going to war. Sure, the plan wouldn't be perfect, as many sub-leaders of the Federation would enter some kind of resistance, but you could get like a quarter if not the half of the Federation be on your side and collaborate, for the sake of staying at peace. I don't know how it was portrayed in the episode, but surely, all citizens of the Federation seeing that this new enemy could strike at the heart of the UFP and even manage land troops would obviously realize that their own authorities have massively failed and are out of touch with reality, and not up to protect them. And then these same people would be the same saying that the UFP can't lose and must go to war? Another bloody conflict, after those against the Xindi, Temporal powers, Romulans, Klingons, etc.?
- No f***in' way. Where do I sign?
That's what you'll get because history has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's lots of people ready for that.
Heck, the geniuses in Bashir's club did also come with a surrender plan. No doubt that they'd have considered such an option much earlier on if the Breen had been successful.

Besides, didn't something similar get deemed effective when a few thousand Romulans attempted to take over Vulcan by beaming down?

So that is it. You do have such a gain for striking for the center of the political nervous system of a centralized government. Not to say that you would gain a lot of time by doing so, allowing to bargain for interesting stuff, and most likely acquire important documents and other knowledge from the high ranked people you captured. Let's not exclude the possibility of being owners of important assets among those hostages, who would surely prefer to give over some of their holdings rather than get smoked.

[User1607]

That's fine and all, but since they did manage to bomb some stuff on the surface, and since shields are not bleed through/dampening systems but literally fake walls when it comes to torpedoes, then again, why the hell didn't a single Breen manage to nuke anything?

I'm going to have to disagree with that statement, since we've seen that pretty much all attacks in ST on shields have had some bleedthrough effects, effects that increase with the weakness of the shields, or else ships with shields should never have any damage to consoles until their shields were down, and they do...

Eek, ships without exploding consoles that kill ensigns in red shirts? Barbaric!

[User1607]

What sort of mind would present such a thing as a failure? No force can prevent everything. That's like saying "OMG the WW2 US Navy sucked because they failed to stop attacks on America!"

Aren't you kinda shooting your own foot in saying that no force can prevent anything?

Not at all. It's simply a fact of life, especially (but not exclusively) for a free society like that of the Federation.

If tomorrow a handful of Al Qaeda gunmen (or knifemen or stickmen) do something awful in an American city and cause the death of many, it is not a failure of the United States. It is an unavoidable attack. The same is true of any other nation.

Particularly against a new type of weapon, whether it's energy-dissipators or passenger-jets.

[Praeothmin]

That's invalid, because the bleeding in question is for some reason transmitted from the shields to some internal systems and overloads some power conduits

It would seem you've never watched TUC, where the shielded E-A gets damaged even though her shields are still there.
Or DS9, where fully shielded ships get damaged by attacks so owerful they overwhelm them and go through to damage them...